War memorial of the 24th Division, Battersea Park

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 6 October 2022 to amend the name, address and description and to reformat the text to current standards

1207/0/10145

BATTERSEA PARK War memorial of the 24th Division, Battersea Park

(Formerly listed as War memorial of the 24th East Surrey Division, Battersea Park)

24-AUG-05

II*

WWI memorial. Designed and sculpted by Eric Henri Kennington RA (1888-1960). Portland stone. Consists of the figures of three infantry soldiers with helmets rifles and full kit, with a serpent at their feet, standing upon a three part columnar base. The figure to the left was modelled on the poet and writer Robert Graves. The base of the memorial has the inscription, XXIV Division France 1914-1918 around the top, above the unit badges of the twenty regiments that made up the Division, . Situated in the registered grade II* Battersea Park.

History: The memorial commemorates over 10,000 men who had been killed or listed as `missing presumed dead' whilst serving with the 24th Infantry Division. The memorial was unveiled on 4 October 1924 in an opening ceremony performed by Field Marshall Plumer and the Bishop of Southwark.

Summary of Importance: The 24th Division war memorial in Battersea Park is not only of historic interest due to its link with world events, but it is also of visual interest, due to the elegant sculptural quality of the depiction of ordinary infantry men by the highly regarded war artist Eric Kennington. This is an unusually avant-garde war memorial with a very interesting depiction of Robert Graves, author of the outstanding war memoir 'Goodbye to All That'.

Sources:

Jonathan Black, `The Legions who have suffered: the war memorials of Eric Kennington c 1921-1954', in Sculpture Journal XI (2004)

Jonathan Black, `Thanks for the Memory': War memorial, spectatorship and the trajectories of commemoration 1919-2001, in Matters of Conflict: Material culture, memory and the First World War, ed. Nicholas J. Saunders (2004)

This List entry has been amended to add sources for War Memorials Online and the War Memorials Register. These sources were not used in the compilation of this List entry but are added here as a guide for further reading, 17 February 2017.